


A Faire Wood In Bloom

by petrarchbaelish



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Gen, Other, Post canon, reviews would be cool but this was essentially a first draft oops, right now it's just me tryin my hand at fic so be nice, the adventures of the 3 magical caballeros and a grocer looking for her almost main squeeze
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:43:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4889689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petrarchbaelish/pseuds/petrarchbaelish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the summer of 1817, magic has seen a new dawn in England. Much is still uncertain--the two paragons the Government so relied on have vanished, a man who looks suspiciously like a twisted tree-root is carting a disheveled charlatan around the country claiming he is a book by the Raven King, a man may or may not have comitted murder with an entire quarry before vanishing (without saying anything like a proper goodbye to one of his dearest acquaintances), and three quarter-trained apprentices are desperately trying to find where they fit in the chaos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Faire Wood In Bloom

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first go at fic in a while, my first go at JS&MN fic EVER, and probably some of the longest writing I've done in six months. I'm pretty nervous and not certain about carrying on, so kind words (or concrit) would be a huge blessing. Obviously, characters, spells, etc. etc. belong largely to Susanna Clarke, and any resemblance to persons living or dead are unintentional and fictional, etc. etc. ALSO: there are novel-style footnotes in this.

_June 1817_

Asphodel house was unusual in London as it was in Clerkenwell (a very fashionable place), yet it was very old and by many accounts abominably ugly. It was all over cold, dark wood and very large, hulking at the corner of St John’s-square like an ancient, irritable black toad. Nobody could agree any longer who had built it, though surely they were very rich, or _why_ , as it had a great many corridors and queer little rooms with no immediately evident purpose. It stood uninhabited for many years, managed by solicitors Bowers & Hewitt, who had by the summer of 1817 been replaced by their sons and grandsons, thus remaining Bowers & Hewitt, but with no recollection on whose behalf they held the house. Indeed, Bowers & Hewitt III had no notion it was in their care—so seldom had their predecessors heard from its owner—until a card arrived requesting they sell the house as soon as possible.

Mr Philip Bowers (the second Philip, but third Bowers of the firm’s history) asked his clerk if they had such a house in their files. After some time the clerk came to him and said they did; it seemed to have come to Mr Philip Bowers (the first Philip, and the first Bowers) by way of a colleague who meant to retire in 1736. It was a small part of an estate belonging to Miss Tabitha Dawndale, who was a spinster with no family and in lieu of finding an heir or personal friend to will her fine things to, opted instead to put nearly all her money to an exquisite Baroque fountain in Derby, and her properties to be stewarded by solicitors’ firms all across the country. Mr Bowers remarked to his clerk that Miss Dawndale’s will was a very odd one, and his clerk was obliged to agree.

“One thing does concern me in this,” said Mr Bowers. “If the lady is dead, and had no friends nor relations to carry out her wishes so many years later, who on Earth sent this note?”

The clerk said it was from Walcott, West & Sons, Exeter. They had received instruction from Miss Dawndale to liquidate all properties in eighty years’ time and continue work on her fountain.[1]

 

Tom Levy lived in three rooms in Donegal-street for fifteen shillings monthly. He shared the house with Mr Murphy and his family for, despite being Catholics (who are often uninclined to house or help their Jewish brethren), they were also Irish, and well accustomed to London’s hostilities. Besides this, Tom was an excellent tenant; he was very quiet and paid his rent punctually, and when Mrs Murphy had a gentleman over for the evening,[2] Tom was very amiable and glad to have Mr Murphy and their sons up for supper—which despite being Hebrew was very good, typically dumpling soup and plum-wine. He had told them on taking tenancy that he was a magician under tutelage of Mr Strange—who had then still been in London—but vowed solemnly not to practice in the Murphy house, nor try any trick more startling than reading a book. To this _Mrs_ Murphy had no objection, but it was a bitter disappointment to her children, who had heard of Mr Strange’s stupendous works during the war and wished very much to see such magic for themselves. Unfortunately, Tom had lived for months on a little stipend provided by Mr Strange; this had stopt once Strange departed for Italy, and Tom’s savings from his time as dancing-master to the Misses V---- was soon to run out.

“You must place notice in the paper, Mrs Murphy, for these rooms; I dare say for a higher cost. The price is very generous of you, but both yourself and Mr Murphy work, and yet--”

“Nonsense, Tom!” chid Mrs Murphy. “You are nearly family; see how you worry for us still! You will stay on with us until you find employ; I know you shall pay the dues in good time.”

Tom said this was very kind, but he would not likely stay in London. “After all, my instruction as a magician has been quite disrupted, and I cannot say if it shall resume again. There is nothing to bind me here in Town, I fear.”

This had until that afternoon been true. His fellow apprentices—the Honourable Henry Purfois and Mr William Hadley-Bright—had not spoken to him or sent word for some months, departing in February to follow Childermass and the King’s Book, such as it was, on their progress through the North. While Tom would have liked to go—indeed nearly _had_ gone, for nothing was so tempting as the last book _of_ magic in England—he took a careful look at his funds and found that if he were to follow Childermass and Vinculus from London to Yorkshire, he _might_ make it as far as Grantham. His colleagues were both wealthy, and Mr Purfois at the very least might have been willing to pay for his coach, but Tom was cognizant of the great rift between himself and the other apprentices; he was loathe to let any one suggest he might be abusing their generous English nature. He wished them luck on the journey when they had left, and said he might spend his own time refining the notes he had taken from their time with a _real_ magician—their time with Mr Strange—which he had done. After four months he had collected his sheaves of loose quarto, copied them in neat, fastidious handwriting, and had them bound into two volumes of an inch or so in limp binding.

Tom flattered himself to think they were of much use to any one else. “But there are _some_ spells here. Perhaps,” he thought, “it might be wise to publish. There could be some money in that, surely.” He was poring over his revised notebooks and marking in pencil what was superfluous and what he must elaborate when Mrs Murphy knocked upon his door with a letter.

“You so seldom get letters, Tom, I thought I had best come deliver it myself, in case the news was grave and I needed to bring you downstairs for some of Mr Murphy’s whisky. “

In deference to the lady, Tom opened the letter there at the door.

_TOM—_

_Please know I would have written you sooner had I not misplaced your address. My best to Mr Murphy et al., and apologies for the mistake. Forgive the sudden and informal nature of this, Hadley-Bright and I only just arrived in Town some days ago. We would have been as men in Eden to keep with Childermass & his vagrant, but Hadley-Bright’s godfather fell ill and he has been attending on the poor man. I have some sketches of The Book which you might want to see, no one yet has seemed to make any progress in reading him. I think it may be like those cuneformic letters of Egypt: without a piece of Latin or some vernacular beside it, we shall not have an easy time of reading the King’s Letters. _

_I write you primarily to tell you myself and Hadley-Bright have bought a house. This may strike you as odd until you see the place, but I swear to you it simply smacks of magic, and he and I agree it would be foolish to try any thing there without you. (I have already been lost in the third-floor corridors twice.) Come at once to Clerkenwell, Tom. I have a notion of what we three might do from here._

_Yours, etc._

_HENRY PURFOIS_  
Asphodel House  
June 11th 1817

 

[1] The story of Miss Tabitha Dawndale (1672-1727) is one which merits explanation. She was the only daughter of the magistrate Calum Dawndale, her mother having died in childbirth, and was raised somewhat peculiarly. Dawndale was so determined that his first child be a son that, instead of remarrying as other men may have done, he ignored conventional advice and set about raising his daughter to have a serviceable education, a deep sense of civic duty, and a forthrightness of speech which had made _him_ a respected magistrate but turned Miss Dawndale into a pariah soon after her father died. She did not let the scorn of her peers dissuade her; from 1698 until her death she wrote and distributed a journal, _The Senescallo_ , filled with very sensible suggestions on municipal governance and several impassioned essays on the importance of urban beautification. Such was her passion for common folk seeing fine things as easily as their betters that she commissioned her fountain—a scene of nymphs and naiads attendant upon Athena and Fortuna, engrossed in books—to be built in Derby.

[2] Mrs Murphy did almost all the washing in Donegal-street, and three more besides, but washerwomen only earn so much, and she had four children. The patronage of Colonel Galvert or Mr Tuck often meant the world. Mr Murphy was quite aware of the necessity of these encounters, and was much happier to have the same one or two gentlemen call on his house once in a fortnight than to have his wife solicit strangers out-of-doors.


End file.
